A County Durham Labour MP has attempted to quash anger over the lack of jobs in the area by writing a misleading letter to constituents who signed a local British National Party petition.

Bishop Auckland MP Helen Goodman wrote the letter to the almost 600 residents who signed Party activist Pete Molloy’s petition to ensure local people be employed at the £200 million Durham Gate development project in Spennymoor.

But Ms Goodman’s letter failed to mention the British National Party petition, confusing local residents as to why they had been contacted. She also attempted to blame the dearth of jobs in the area solely on the ‘Tory-led government’ despite Labour’s own shocking record of local job destruction.

Ms Goodman was shamed into writing the letter after the latest issue of the Spennymoor Patriot leaflet began landing on residents’ doormats.

The leaflet explains how the MP failed to respond to Mr Molloy after he handed in the petition in November 2011.

Mr Molloy said: ‘I left my name, address, email and mobile number with our MP’s staff for her to contact me regarding local people being employed in their town, but to date she has still failed to contact me.

‘It was only after informing the local people that I had handed in the petition that she has shamefully written, with her tail between her legs, to the people who signed the petition.’

The ‘Local Jobs for Local People’ campaign was launched after it was feared that many of the jobs at Durham Gate would go to foreign workers, as was the case at the county’s Chilton power station, where labourers from Finland, Lithuania and Germany were employed.

Confusing and badly written

Local residents only realized why they had received the correspondence from their MP after Mr Molloy explained to them it was due to their signing the Local Jobs petition.

‘Many of the people who received the letter are now very unhappy that our MP has tried to deceive them by making out that she has done the work for local people,’ said Mr Molloy.

The letter begins with a fallacious statement that claims the MP is ‘Standing up for all in the Bishop Auckland Constituency’.

You just have to ask Adam and Mark Walker if at any time Helen Goodman has stood up them over their teaching jobs and you will be told the truth.

She also goes on to blame the lack of jobs in the Spennymoor area on the Tory-led coalition government but fails to mention how the Labour government destroyed the manufacturing jobs in Spennymoor when big companies like Electrolux and Black & Decker shut down their factories and moved out of the town.

Overall, the letter is very poorly written and contains numerous instances of bad punctuation and grammar, including this gem: ‘60% of the suppliers and contractors supporting the project are based in North East based’.

Such a shoddily written and offhand letter shows at best an illiterate MP and at worst clear disregard for her constituents’ concerns.

Continuing to spread the truth

The public’sexcellent response to the petition has spurred on County Durham members, who continued to deliver the latest Spennymoor Patriot leaflet to local people this week.

The activists gave out several hundred leaflets in the Tudhoe area of the town on a windy but warm spring morning.

As well as an update on the petition, the leaflet also features a story about the scandal of anti-white racism in Spennymoor – which has been completely ignored by the local media – and a report on our activists’ volunteer litter-picking sessions.

If you would like to help County Durham British National Party campaign in our area, please contact us at northeast@bnp.org.uk.

The latest Spenny Patriot

British National Party ‘Local Jobs’ petition prompts shameful response from Labour MP